Tag Archives: Expenses

Personal Finance Tips to Consider

Bruce HeenThere’s numerous ideas and thoughts on how to save money but the favorite seem to be to buy less lattes, pay less for data and switch your wireless mobile provider. However how valid are these assertions?

According to data on monthly Starbucks expenditure, people actually do not spend as much money on coffee as they assume, so cutting back won’t really rack in your savings. The average Starbucks customer goes less than 3 times a month and spends a total of $24 dollars. The dollars being spent are not very substantial, and although you could make a much cheaper coffee at home, there are better ways to cut back.

For Cable, analyzing data on how much people spend on major providers, such as Comcast, gives a good indication of potential savings. Most people pay between $50-$150 a month for Comcast so the ability to save is significant. It should not be hard to cut $50 from your cable bill a month which can save you $600 a year. A combination of other services such as Netflix and Hulu might work as well.

With so many cellphone providers, there is certainly an opportunity for savings. T-Mobile seems to be the cheapest based on what an average customer spends a month. The real savings comes from switching to one of the smaller carriers which will have you spending an average of $87 a month lower.

Coffee does not seem to be the money pit it used to be and wireless and cable seem to be where the real savings lie. Cutting $600 a year off your cable bill may be possible for many spending over $150/month and the savings on phone plans over a year could even hit 4 digits for those with some flexibility. So take some action and save some money.

For more information read on at http://www.forbes.com/sites/simonmoore/2014/08/13/three-personal-finance-tips-from-big-data/

Keeping Travel Cheap

Ever wondered how you can save money so you can budget funds for travel?

I came across a great article on CBS that explains some helpful tips. The first tip is to simply create a budget for your trip. Where is it that you’d like to go? What activities are you planning on doing while away? For instance, you would like to go skiing. You’ve figured out the amount of money it will cost to get to the mountain via car or airplane. Where will you be staying? How much does a lift ticket cost for how many days? Are you going out to eat most nights or cooking dinner? There are a lot of questions to ask and if you can answer most of them before going, you will have a great sense of how much you will need to set aside for the trip.

The next tip is to save. If you don’t have a timeline of when you need to go away then you can take your time raising the necessary funds. Some simple ways to save your pennies is to sacrifice a few luxuries in the short-term. Stop impulse buying, keep yourself from eating out, pack a lunch, and carpool. These are just a few things that you can do to save a little bit of cash incrementally. It doesn’t have to be all at one time. If you take the time to change the way you spend money over a period of time you will see a vacation fund increase.

The third tip is to plan far ahead. If you know when you’d like to go away, try and plan it for the future instead of last minute. Airlines and hotels raise prices around the holidays. The earlier the better.

Another tip that people don’t consider is their payment cards. If you are traveling outside of the country, you could receive a surcharge or transaction fee. Be sure to check with your bank beforehand. You could also seek out credit cards that don’t have processing fees like a Capital One credit card.

These are just a few tips to help you save a bit of money when traveling.